


Cultured

by twowritehands



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Piercings, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 07:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20792843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: Trevor and Philip discuss an aspect of 21st culture





	Cultured

**Author's Note:**

> Still just getting a feel for the characters and having fun making up facts about the future :)

The shop was quiet except for the tap tap tat of Philip's fingers on the computer keyboard and the erratic splatter and knock from Poppy's tank. Trevor did homework. Everyone was off tending to Protocol 5 except for Philip, who sat at the computer working away.

"You're life," Trevor said into the silence. His voice wavered tenuously between going deep and cracking. "It's peaceful."

Philip's brows swooped low and for the first time in 2 hours and 28 minutes, he looked away from the screen. His eyes were unfocused and puzzled. "What life?"

"This life." Trevor lifted his hands to indicate their headquarters. "Your life here in this home. It's peaceful. Quiet."

"Hm," Philip said, leaning back. No comment. But he was actively listening now. His eyes had sharpened and were now stuck on Trevor.

"There's no sports news blaring in the downstairs den," Trevor elaborated. "No parents trying to keep their voices low as they argue in the next room."

"Living at home is getting old, then?"

Trevor smiled. "Living at home. Isn't that the most curious twenty first century expression?"

Philip blinked and then jumped an eyebrow, settling in with his Historian hat on, "Well, historically, the majority of people in this century were raised in a house with parents and siblings. They had entire childhoods of consistency. So even when they are grown and out on their own in some new living situation, the family unit--and the family house itself--continues to be referred to as Home. Thus, they refer to people who haven't left the nest as still living at home."

"Thanks, I understand the etymology." Trevor grinned as Philip smirked. "It just hits my ear strangely."

Philip inhaled and had a proper look around. "Sometimes I feel like I'm still home, if I'm honest."

Trevor looked around. Concrete. Steel. Glass. Wires. Computers. Guns. "Yeah. I see it."

"But there's no Revelry Bell. No recycled air. Unlimited water usage. And Poppy." Philip left his chair and crossed over to the tank.

"She's awesome," Trevor said.

"She really helps," Philip said. "You know. With my recovery. She depends on me."

"We depend on you, too." Trevor insisted with as much sincerity as he could convey.

Philip grinned, but it was one of those sad grins of someone who believed what they heard was nothing more than polite manners. "Thanks."

He swiped at his nose and then scratched at the little silver ring snug in one nostril. Then pinched it as if to adjust its position.

Trevor took the chance to change the subject. "I've been meaning to ask. Is that comfortable?"

He left the desk where he'd been attempting to make a set of algebra problems seem difficult for him. (Lots of bullshit numbers and erasing before writing the real answer. And this century had some nonsense about showing one's work?)

"What?" Philip asked. "My nose ring? Sure. Hardly even notice it most of the time."

"Seems painful," Trevor leaned on the table beside the turtle tank. "Piercing the flesh for no reason."

In the future, piercings were out of fashion. It had always seemed grotesque. Self mutilation in the name of… what?

Philip grinned. "Well, there is a reason."

"For a young white male in this country in this era? It's pure vanity." He was teasing. Philip was into it.

Philip chuckled. "Okay maybe so for the nose one, but the others have function, believe me."

Trevor felt his own flirty smile slip as his brain skipped like the ancient vinyl record that this century revered as authentic music recording. "Others?"

"Nipples. Foreskin." Philip was playing casual well, but the wickedness glinted just out of sight. "When I first got here, there was one in my tongue, but I just couldn't get used to it."

Trevor felt hot all over. "Did you say foreskin?"

Philip busted out with a full rich laugh. "If only you could see your face, old man."

"But wait. Wait. What function does a ring in your foreskin have?"

"Pleasure," Philip shrugged. "Same with nipples. Come on, Trev. Historically, it's nothing unique to this culture or even this century. I know you know that."

Trevor was having a predicament to be blamed entirely on the hormones of his host. His voice did crack causing him to have to try again at speech. "Yeah--yes. Thank you, of course I knew all of that already. I just. I didn't realize your host was so… cultured."

Philip laughed again, head back. Light glinting on the nose ring. In a single cut of his eyes over to Trevor, Philip Pearson seemed to shed his youth. Those eyes _ saw _ . Those eyes _ knew _ . Those eyes _ welcomed _.

Philip's voice took on a new pitch. "Cultured. Is that what kids are calling it?"

Trevor didn't know what to do with his hands. 280 years old. "What would you call it?" 

Philip's smirk was playful. "Slutty."

Trevor blushed. Again. Host hormones. Well, maybe.

Philip's eyes dropped down Trevor's body and climbed back up.

Arousal zinged through Trevor while an awful welling up of nerves was almost sickening. He cleared his throat. Philip just looked on steadily.

A moment of _ excruciating _ awkwardness passed, made all the worse because only Trevor seemed able to feel it.

In all the bodies Trevor had been in, all the lifetimes he'd played out, all the love he'd found and lost, he never failed to be caught off guard by the sheer biology of it. The overwhelming power of the flesh. The simple truth of it is that blood flow swept a mind right off its feet, no matter how mature the mind might be.

A blade of grass could never stand against the river's current. 

Wait--reeds. Reeds were a grass that stood in river currents!

"Be a reed," Trevor said to himself on an exhale. It rang like a brilliant knew mantra. Just felt _ right _. He would remember it for his next meditation.

Philip's brows went low again but he was smiling. "Be a what?"

Oh. Shit. "I--I… said... Be a reed. You know, against the current." He made a motion with his hands as if conveying the current of electricity between them.

Philip bobbed his head. "Right."

The mood was dead. Trevor took the easy way out and left it dead. Flirting was all good fun but sometimes the sparks lit the kindling. Like now. And it wasn't a bad thing, but it wasn't an easy thing either.

Trevor didn't live this long by playing too fast and loose with fire.

On the plus side, Philip was being cool about it. The fumbling backhanded rejection was met with nothing but grace.

Philip used two hands to push his hair back and lift it off his neck for a second. He turned back to his computer and tossed a distracted hand around the shop. "Peaceful is good for homework _ and _ meditating so, feel free to be a reed here any time."

Trevor chuckled and threw an eraser at Philip's retreating form. It pinged off his head. He whirled, laughing, and dropped into his desk chair.

Flirting was back to its easy rhythm. Dangerous flames safely smothered. For now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Philip 1.0 was a heroine addict who bothered to stay clean shaven. Anyone else get the feeling that means he is baby smooth from the neck down?


End file.
